Monday of Holy Week begins the focus on Judas Iscariot's plot to betray Christ. Today, his character is revealed as a parsimonious thief. The day is a contrast between Mary Magdalene's love of Christ and Judas' souless thinking. A beautiful hymn, quite medieval and Celtic in tone, by Sydney Carter is well worth meditating on. I will be centering a lot of my comments on Judas, for he is a complicated figure with many ties to the secular and irreligious views of today. The figure of Judas haunts me. It's so easy to just dismiss him as a betrayer but he is more like us than we know. All of us must beg to be kept from the sin of Judas, namely, the sin of despair.
SAID JUDAS TO MARY
Said Judas to Mary, ‘Now what will you do
With your ointment so rich and so rare?’
‘I’ll pour it all over the feet of the Lord
And I’ll wipe it away with my hair,’ she said,
‘Wipe it away with my hair.’
‘Oh Mary, oh Mary, oh think of the poor
This ointment, it could have been sold,
And think of the blankets and think of the bread
You could buy with the silver and gold.’ he said,
‘Buy with the silver and gold.’
‘Tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll think of the poor
Tomorrow,’ she said, ‘not today;
For dearer than all of the poor in the world
Is my love who is going away,’ she said,
My love who is going away.’
Said Jesus to Mary, ‘Your love is so deep
Today you may do as you will.
Tomorrow you say I am going away,
But my body I leave with you still,’ he said,
‘My body I leave with you still.’
‘The poor of the world are my body,’ he said,
‘To the end of the world they shall be.
The bread and the blankets you give to the poor
You’ll know you have given to me,’ he said,
‘Know you have given to me.’
‘My body will hang on the cross of the world
‘Tomorrow,’ he said, ‘and today,
And Martha and Mary will find me again
And wash all the sorrow away,’ he said,
‘Wash all the sorrow away.’
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